I just installed a new keyboard on my main computer in my office and so far I am very happy with it. The only problem is that it has made my old mouse pad look very old and worn out and in need of replacement. Replacing a piece of foam should be simple or is it?

Mouse pads are basically just pads for your mouse to travel on while you point and click—simple, huh? NO. Mouse pads are made in varying thicknesses, materials and configurations and finding the right one for you can be a bit daunting. My son loves his mouse arena—I can’t use it. It is a mouse pad with a stand attached to keep the wire out of the way and it also provides a wrist rest all the way around it. This is fine for him because he has the longest fingers in America but my digits are stumpy and I am not comfortable at all using it.

Most mouse pads are flat affairs made of foam in different thicknesses and covered with a surface that is supposed to make dragging that mouse around easier. Wrong. I have had mouse pads that were slick and some that felt like a bumpy road. I couldn’t tell which was which while it was in the package but at work or home the truth was there. I have returned mouse pads because they were simply not usable.. If you get the wrong one don’t be shy about returning it—after all that small piece of equipment is used all the time at your computer and you need to be comfortable. The very theme of this blog is to help avoid frustration and I believe that starts with even the most basic items such as your mouse pad.

Take a few moments when you are shopping at your favorite computer wonderland and look at all of the mouse pad offerings. Don’t hesitate to ask the store help for their input—micro pad (really flat – no foam at all) arenas, pads with wrist rests or upgrade to an optical mouse which does not require a mouse pad at all. The whole point is to be comfortable at your work or play space and for you to be happy with your setup

I just got a new Microsoft Natural Ergo Keyboard 4000 for my computer in the office and I am moving my old one to a little used back–up computer. I usually take the opportunity of moving a piece of equipment to a new place, or repurposing a piece of hardware, to give it a good old fashioned clean up. Usually my choice of any cleaning is soap and water but you really can’t use that on electronics so what do you use? — Canned air and Swiffers!! Don’t laugh—I am deadly serious.

Air comes in pressured cans with a neat attachable straw like item that allows the user to point and spray into tiny places. Keyboards are especially prone to itsy bits of dust and dirt and nothing works better than a good shot of that pressurized can. Hint: turn your head away from the spry trajectory as the dust will really fly and go right up your nose—achoo! I use the air on items I can’t move easily too. It’s great on stacked electronics, computer towers-just about anything that you can’t use common cleaning items on. Just point, press and spray—no dust!!

Swiffers are cloths that electrostatic ally attract dust to their fibers and you just take it away. They don’t hurt anything and collect dust like a dream. The Swiffers that you attach to a plastic stick allow you to use them on stacked electronics to get the dust in-between the stacks and under then to dust the furniture they sit on. The instructions say to throw them away (Swiffers) once they are dirty but I cheat and wash them to use again.

Well, that is my cleaning lesson for the week—next week—coffee cups!

GMail is the email application run by Google, the company best known for its search engine.  Why does everyone rave about it?  Because it is probably one of the best email solutions out there.

It can sometimes be difficult for people to imagine getting excited about how they access their email, but GMail is one of those times.  A simple interface, accessible from anywhere, with superb integration with mobile devices such as the iPhone/iPod Touch and BlackBerry, it’s hard to dislike it.  When you add in that it has over 6 GB storage, a superb search feature, easy filing with the use of their “labels”, ability to store files in their “Documents” add on…

Can you tell we love GMail around here?  For me, someone who does nothing but live on the Internet 24/7 as a writer, I have basically given up all other forms of email for my GMail accounts, they all pale in comparison.  And, oh yeah, did I mention it’s free?

If you haven’t tried it yet, you really should, you’ll find it difficult to go back.

First of all I want all of my readers to know that I am not on the Apple payroll. That being said, I invite you to visit the new glories of the Apple iPod Touch.

This week has been extremely stressful for me as I once again prepare to leave town for the road part of my job. Yes, I am a road warrior. I stay in too many hotels, eat too much fast food and up until now I carried way to much equipment with me in and out of said hotel rooms.

As I have stated, my laptop weighs a ton and that weight plus the weight of my computer bag is sometimes too much to face when I roll into the hotel at midnight. I admit I have let my e-mail go for two or three days because I didn’t want to drag that laptop out. Most hotels have a business center but there is almost always someone using it for hours checking out eBay or playing blow up the aliens for hours and I don’t have the strength to wait.

So now I have a new piece of equipment that allows me to leave the ten pound weight in that 20 pound bag while I check my e-mail and make sure my website is up to date without waiting to see what new aliens have attacked New York. My iPod Touch is my new friend. Since I have been home for a week (a grand amount of time in my world) I decided to treat my evenings as though I was on the road. I have checked my e-mail, surfed the web for wholesale product and even looked at pictures of the same puppies that were licking my feet at the time. It is so extremely simple that I often check with my son (my own personal techie) to make sure I am not breaking it. Turn it on and off with one button—turn it off without having to close programs. That is right –just push the button when you are in AOL or on a website and there you go—you are off! When you turn it on again it goes back to where you were, but there is no problem in going back to your icons to choose where else you want to go. I don’t have to provide passwords for e-mail—the iPod Touch knows what to do. E-mail takes half the time—more time for a hot shower!! The only glitch I have found in the AOL e-mail area is that once you read an e-mail it is transferred into your old file and no longer shows up on the new page. This seems to be peculiar to AOL only but I have not researched my other e-mail providers.

As more cities are attempting to Wi-Fi their boundaries I am sure that internet connections will become super available and simple, but while I wait for the whole country to be one giant connection I am going to research various businesses for connectivity. As I start this next series of road warrior adventures I am going to visit various advertised locations to check out their purported consumer friendly connections and the untapped glories of my Touch. I will, I hope, be happily reporting that everything works as advertised and that I am a happy little warrior. I’ll be back soon.

Microsoft didn’t make it exactly easy in Windows XP for the new user to figure out how to change their desktop image, and even years after release I see people with the same background they had on day one. Considering you can use just about any picture as your desktop, it’s time you changed that boring old background to something that matters to you!

And this article was actually requested by a reader, so if you have something you want covered, drop us a note!

(due to the number of images in this article, please click “Continue Reading” to see it all)

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There is probably nothing more important to safeguarding your online identity than picking a strong password. However, the trick is coming up with a password that is not only strong, but can be easily remembered by you and won’t be something someone can easily connect to you.

One of the most common mistakes people make is creating a password that is something as simple as their child’s name or their wedding anniversary. If someone knows you, such as a coworker, and they want to gain access to your email, those will be the first things they try.

Here is a list of definite password inspirations you should avoid:

• Anniversary dates
• Any basic word you could find in a dictionary of any language
• Any keyboard sequence (i.e. QWERTY or 12345)
• Birthdays
• Names of close friends or coworkers
• Names of TV/movie/book characters
• Repetitive letters (i.e. nnnnnn)
• The network name of your computer
• Your boss’s name
• Your child’s name
• Your company name
• Your favorite vacation spot
• Your grandchild’s name
• Your license plate number
• Your name
• Your parent’s name
• Your pet’s name
• Your phone number
• Your social security number
• Your spouse’s name

In April of 2007, PC Mag published a list of the 10 most common passwords people use.

1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. link182
10. (your first name)

So there you have it, all of the things people do wrong, so what can you do right? Therein lies the eternal question: How do you build a good password? Some people recommend that you use a mixture of capital and lower case letters, but not all password systems offer case-sensitivity. A mixture of words and numbers can also work, but if you pick a favorite word and number, it again becomes a bit too easy for someone to figure out. I personally like to suggest replacing some letters with symbols that look somewhat like the letters of a word, this way you can use a word you do know, but it will be mixed up some. Here are some suggestions:

• A = ^ or @
• C = (
• E = 3
• I = 1
• S = $
• T = +

So let’s say you want to use a word like “sparkle”, using the symbols it would be “$p^rk13″. This actual word is too short, but it gives you a good visual example of just how much you mix up a word by just throwing in a few symbols into it.

Now you’ve learned what not to use, and how to build a stronger password, how do you test it? How do you come up with one that is totally random? There are free checkers and generators out there that will help you with your password.

Password Strength Meters

CertainKey Passphrase Strength Meter – This one really lets you know what’s going on, scoring as you type and telling you how many days it would take to crack.

Microsoft Password Checker – From software manufacturer Microsoft, this one emphasizes length and complexity to give you a password score.

PasswordMeter.com – Numerous options and meters to judge the strength of your password and give suggestions.

SecurityStats.com Password Checker – This checker will judge your password against common password creation practices.

Password Generators

ChooseAPassword.com – A bit basic in that only asks you three questions and then arranges those three answers into a password.

GRC.com – This one will generate passwords that you have absolutely no chance of ever remembering, but you would be hard pressed to beat their strength.

PassPub.com – Every time you load the page you will receive randomly generated password that are 8 characters in length.

PasswordFire.com – This one will ask you a couple of questions and try to combine your answers into one jumbled up password that you can remember, but would require someone to do a lot of guessing.

PwdGen – Another one that will randomly generate a password for you that has considerable strength, but, again, you will have a heck of a time remembering it.

SafePasswd.com – This one gives you numerous options such as number of characters, type to include and more.

This is certainly not a complete guide to all the rules and suggestions of passwords, but hopefully it will set you on your way to a more secure future online.